268 NATURAL HISTORY COLLEGTIOIS^S IN ALASKA. 



the northern side of the Aliaskan Peninsula, are several well-known hauling grounds which they 

 visit for a short time each year, abont the middle of June. Elliott states that some thirty or thirty- 

 five years previous to 1873 they were sometimes killed on the islands of the Pacific, between 

 Unimak and Kadiak. 



From Bristol Bay north to the southern mouth of the Yukon they are rather numerous for a 

 time in spring, just as the ice breaks up, and again iu fall, in September and October, before 

 the coast becomes ice-bound. Some winter off the coast between Nunevak Island and Bristol 

 Bay. The coast between the Yukon mouth and Golovina Bay is rarely visited by them now, 

 although they were formerly common there in fall and spring. In Bering Straits they are very 

 numerous every fall and spring, moving south before the ice-pack in autumn, and following it 

 as it retreats into the Arctic in the spring. During nearly all the year a few individuals, mostly 

 males, are found about Walrus Island, off Saint Paul, of the Fur Seal group, where they were 

 formerly abundant. They are also about Saint Matthew Island nearly or quite all of the year, 

 and occur in great abundance about Saint Lawrence Island during the migrations. At the 

 latter periods they are also numerous along the Siberian coast of Bering Sea and the straits. 

 North of the straits they are widely spread in summer, but keep in the close vicinity of the ice- 

 pack. 



During the summer of 1881 we found them along the Siberian coast west to Cape North, and 

 thence north to Wrangel and Herald Islands, and along the pack easterly to the Alaskan coast, 

 near Cape Lisburne, and thence north to Point Barrow, but they were not seen away from the 

 vicinity of the ice. 



They are hunted by the Eskimo ia kyaks, with ivory-pointed spears and the usual seal-skin 

 line and floats. When the animal is exhausted by its efforts to escape the hunters draw near and 

 give the death stroke with an iron or flint headed lance. 



On the south shore of Bristol Bay men are landed from vessels in June and left to watch for 

 the Walruses to haul np on the beach at certain i^oints. When a "pod" or herd of them is well 

 ashore one or two old bulls are usually left to watch for danger while the others sleep. The best 

 shot among the hunters now creeps np, and by a sucessful rifle-shot or two kills the guard. The 

 gun is then put aside, and each hunter, armed with a sharp ax, approaches the sleeping animals 

 and cuts the spines of as many of them as possible before the others become alarmed and stampede 

 for the water and escape. Sometimes the entire herd is captured in this way, but when the alarm 

 is once given the hunters give the survivors all the room necessary to escape, for nothing can stop 

 them. 



Several hundred of these animals are sometimes killed in a few days, and after their tusks, 

 containing a few pounds of ivory each, are cut out the carcasses are left and the ground is deserted 

 until the following spring. 



The visit of the Walruses to the beaches of Bristol Bay occurs in June, and they remain there 

 only a few days and sometimes only a few hours. I know of one party of hunters who camped a 

 month on one of these hauling grounds waiting for the Walruses. Finally, becoming tired of stay- 

 ing in camp, all hands went egging one day and returned to find, much to their disgust, that the 

 Walruses had been there and vanished again. 



In spring and fall they are numerous about Cape Newenham and along the shore just north 

 of the mouth of the Kuskoquim. In this district the water is very shallow, and when the natives 

 find a herd of Walrus in one of the small bays they surround them in kyaks, and, by making a 

 great noise, frighten the animals, so that they will go ashore as soon as they discover that they 

 cannot escape by diving. Once ashore they are killed with lances or guns. A " drive " of about 

 thirty animals was secured near Cape Vancouver in the fall of 1878. 



According to the natives living along this strip of coast, the young Walruses are born early in 

 spring, when the ice breaks up, during April and May. They report the Walruses as being very 

 timid and inoffensive animals at all other seasons, but say that the hunters give a female Walrus 

 with young a wide berth at this time. The female becomes very savage, and, like a bear with her 

 cub, she has only to catch sight of an intruder upon her domain to make an attack. 



